


Shadows and Night

by DarklyDreamingLoki (DarklyDreamingDixon), TWDObsessive



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Walking Dead (TV), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Developing Relationship, First Dates, First Kiss, First Time, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Loki is a vampire, M/M, Soulmates, Weird pairing-I know, give it a chance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:41:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28351086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarklyDreamingDixon/pseuds/DarklyDreamingLoki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/pseuds/TWDObsessive
Summary: Loki has been a vampire for well over a century and he has never meet a mortal who's had the effect on him that Daryl Dixon does.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Loki (Marvel)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	Shadows and Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotr58](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotr58/gifts).



> Okay don't freak out! I'm still going to write Rickyl. I have things I'm working on. I'm not abandoning that ship! I'm posting this under my TWDObsessive main pseud and my side pseud DarklyDreamingDixon (DarklyDreamingLoki). (I created the Loki one just in case I dive more into Loki in the future).
> 
> But for funsies I tried something new here. My dear friend and beta, LOTR58 has turned me on to Tom Hiddleston's Loki and we ended up talking about vampires and Daryl and Loki and well, here we are. This was written for LOTR58's birthday. I'm not sure if anyone else will like the pairing but the two of us, but I'd like to find out! I give you- the Daryl Dixon/Loki fic you didn't know you wanted.
> 
> Happy Birthday, Lotr58 and thanks as always for the beta!

Loki always had an eye for the sullen and solitary. Those hiding in the corners of a bar lowering their inhibitions and oozing with an obvious desperation for company. Some might say he had a type - men who could be easily convinced to leave with him.

His smile grew wider as the younger man across from him continued to drone on about his horoscope. Something about a Pisces and water signs and no siblings. A pet goldfish. It was hard for Loki to concentrate on the mind-numbing conversation. He ran his tongue over his sharp canines and felt the urge to extend them and clamp down on the other man’s throat. He could have done it, right then and there. There was no law saying he couldn’t, though it would definitely be frowned upon. And he’d have to leave the little life he’d made for himself in the small Atlanta suburb of Senoia, Georgia. 

He wasn’t up for another move yet. He’d moved dozens if not hundreds of times over his many years, and it got old. It was just easier to feed in quiet corners and out of the way alleys than it was to make a big production in the middle of town. He’d made his share of big productions. It was entertaining to watch all the reactions, but it never failed to end with torches and stakes and angry villagers, so quiet meals had become Loki’s norm.

The Picses had mousy brown hair, a few days worth of scruff, a too-thin frame, and he wore suit pants and a white button-up with the tie loosened. The absolute picture of someone the world wouldn’t miss. Somewhere in the middle of a story about his goldfish, the man was interrupted. 

“GET. LOST.” It was a low, angry voice with a slight southern accent and Loki knew it well. He looked over, his eyes landing on tattered jeans, traveling up to a narrow waist, a broad chest trapped in a tight blue sleeveless, and finally landing on familiar blue eyes.

“Um. What? Me?” the Pisces asked as he looked back and forth between Loki and the southern accent. 

“Yes. You. Fuck off will ya?” the man snarled.

Pisces looked at Loki, who just shrugged. He hadn’t looked like all that appetizing of a meal anyway, though Loki was going to have an issue with his insatiable craving for fresh, warm blood. It had been nearly a week since he’d fed. 

After Pisces awkwardly got up, sidestepped the southern accent, and walked off, Loki waved a hand at the now empty seat. “Daryl Dixon,” he said with an actual genuine smile (as  
opposed to one of his forced, necessary ones). “Funny running into you, my friend.”

Daryl plopped down in the chair and slammed his half empty glass onto the table, not hard enough to break it, but hard enough to make a point. “You, Loki. Are a DICK.”

Daryl always looked angry, even when he was in a good mood. It was a sexy angry. Fiery.  
Untamed. Loki took a sip of his whisky as he waited patiently for Daryl to continue. Hell, watching Daryl was one of his all-time favorite hobbies.

“I have asked you out at least half a dozen times and you keep telling me you ain’t lookin’ to date yet. I’m out sitting on the same damn stoop every single night and you hop across town to try and pick up some weaselly little accountant? You douse me with compliments all the damn time, man. If you like me and you are now looking for a date, why the fuck didn’t you come ‘round tonight? Ain’t seen ya in days.”

“I do like you, Daryl. I never say anything I don’t mean.” The fiery redneck was gorgeous. In another world Loki would have devoured him – in a good way, not the draining of blood way. He was sassy and sharp and funny and hot as hell. There was nothing not to like and that’s why Loki couldn’t ever be alone with him. 

Almost every night Loki would walk past the other man’s apartment and Daryl would always be sitting out on the stoop with a beer, watching the small town move around him. They would just say hi at first. Then hello’s became quick chats, then longer conversations, then shared beers out on that front stoop with laughs, chit-chat, stories, and philosophical discussions.

At the beginning, Loki thought about trying to convince the man to invite him in, but he quickly realized how much he enjoyed Daryl’s company. If he drained him of blood and left him for dead, who would he chat with every evening? He’d been going out of his way to keep his animal instincts from turning Daryl into a one-night feast. He hadn’t felt that way about anyone in nearly a century.

“Well, what the fuck were you gonna do with that asshole if you ain’t looking for a date?” Daryl demanded.

If Loki were still human, he’d have had this man bent over months ago. Or, depending on his mood, he’d be the one bending over. But since the life of a vampire left little room for romantic entanglements, he’d been trying to keep the man at arm’s length. If only he could simply explain himself to Daryl. Then, he thought, there was no law saying he couldn’t.

“I was going to entice him to join me in the back alley and then I was going to clamp down on his throat with my teeth and drink his blood, drain him until there was nothing left.” Loki said plainly, smiling at Daryl.

Daryl blinked at him a few times before he started to laugh. “You are a weird mother fucker,” he finally said. And like that they were back to their usual routine. Easy friendship, idle chatter, and laughs. And as they talked, Loki was able to enjoy the timeless beauty of the other man. 

They had a second round as they continued talking about a lot of nothing in particular. After they paid their tabs, they headed towards Daryl’s place wordlessly. It would be a nice long walk through town and hopefully Loki would have come to his senses by then. 

He side-eyed Daryl to watch the way his body moved when he walked. They were in mid-argument over whether or not rats really tried to eat sleeping soldiers in the trenches of WWI. They did, and Loki knew that as fact since he had been one of those soldiers, but he was letting Daryl continue to try to convince him otherwise. 

“Why you lookin’ at me like that?” Daryl finally asked flirtatiously. “Ain’t like you’re gonna do anything but look.”

“I do like looking, Daryl,” Loki said as he walked with his hands behind his back, his long black trench coat flapping behind him in the late fall breeze. “I just...don’t want to ruin what we have.”

“What do we have?” Daryl asked coyly as he came to a stop and leaned back against the street light in front of his apartment.

The way the light caught the strands of his hair, how it sparkled in his eyes, and how the often-times boisterous man could turn so soft and sensual, Loki simply forgot to keep up his walls. Instead, he walked into Daryl’s space, sifted his long fingers into Daryl’s shaggy hair, and pulled him close in a kiss that did things to Loki’s insides that hadn’t been done in a long, long while.

*******************************  
Daryl hated that asshole. Always so dark and brooding and mysterious. Dressed head to toe in black, his eyes darkened by make-up, and his long, dark hair hanging well past his neck. Who did he think he was? Hanging around Daryl’s stoop all the time. Making idle chit-chat and jokes. Having deep philosophical conversations about history and life. Laughing with that _laugh_ and smiling with that _smile_. And every time there’d be a moment between them and Daryl would ask him out he’d get turned down. What kind of asshole does that? And then comes back the next night walking that same sexy walk and leaning that long sleek body against the building and looking at Daryl like he was a _meal_.

Well, fuck him. If he wanted to just be friends, Daryl would simply turn off his interests. He would forget about the way Loki’s eyes seemed to hold the secrets to the universe, how his smile was contagious, how the sound of his voice gave Daryl chills even on the hottest summer night. He’d just be friends. Buds. Pals. That’s fine. 

That was exactly what he was thinking as he sat at the End of the World Tavern drinking a Budweiser draft and then his eyes landed on that very asshole chatting up some nine-to-fiver with a spaghetti stain on his shirt. He didn’t plan on making such a bold display, but Daryl had never been good at subtlety or self-control.

When they were walking back towards Daryl’s place he was already changing his mind about never asking the guy out again. They just got along so well. They moved so easy together and their conversations were always so organic and unconstrained. The man was fascinating, hauntingly so, and damn fine to look at. As he leaned back flirtatiously against the streetlight, he was gazing at the other man. Those eyes--Daryl could never figure them out. In some light they were bluer than the ocean and other times they seemed to sparkle green like emeralds. 

And then Loki walked into his space, ran fingers up through Daryl’s hair, and kissed him. Daryl’s lips parted in surprise and Loki leaned in even closer and kissed him deeper. His lips tasted like whiskey and the scent of him so close was familiar yet mysterious, like folklore or fairy tale. There was passion between them that couldn’t be denied and that single moment seemed to last for hours, days. But a mere few moments later he could feel Loki’s mouth turn into a smile as he pulled away and Daryl smiled, too.

“Told ya you’d eventually cave to my charms,” Daryl said, trying to sound more solid than he felt. In reality, he was pretty sure a light breeze would knock him off his feet. 

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Loki said, worrying those brows of his. He leaned back against the building and instead of Daryl taking his normal spot on the stoop, he walked up to Loki and held his gaze. 

“Ain’t no way you can convince me you didn’t feel nothin’,” he said, more a whisper of breath than actual words.

Loki looked down at Dary, who was a good five inches shorter, and cocked his head to the side. “Daryl, in another world you’d be mine.”

“What’s wrong with this fuckin’ world?” Daryl asked, hating how much he always seems to beg and plead with this guy. He _felt_ the connection they had. Loki felt it. Daryl _knew_ he did.

Loki took a finger and brushed back the hair that had fallen over Daryl’s eye. “I...can be a brutal lover, Daryl. I like you too much for that.”

Daryl choked on a laugh. “That’s it? You can be a brutal lover?? That’s why you keep pushing me away all the time?!”

“Maybe brutal isn’t the right word,” Loki said slowly, his eyes suddenly flashing green. He opened his jaw as if he was yawning, but then there was noise like a knife being pulled from a butcher block and Daryl could see Loki’s sharp cuspids extend. 

They stared at one another for long minutes as drops of water started to spill from the sky.

“You weren’t fuckin’ around earlier,” Daryl finally said.

“No. And you entice me, Daryl. I want to devour you, but I don’t want you to disappear so I must keep my distance.”

“You can’t fuck me without…” Daryl waved his hand towards Loki’s sharp teeth.

“It would be beyond difficult I’m afraid. Especially since you chased off the only meal I’ve had lined up in a week.”

For some reason, the fact that Loki was standing before him admitting to being an actual vampire didn’t shock Daryl as much as he might have expected. In fact it seemed to make sense.

“If you just need some...to tide you over...” Daryl started, slowly cocking his head to bear his neck, “you can take it from me.”

Daryl’s body was on fire, his cock hard, his heartbeat thudding in his own ears. 

Loki ran a finger along the line of Daryl’s chin, then along his neck. “I wouldn’t want to risk losing you.”

Across the street two young men were kicked out of a nearby bar and started fighting with each other. Loki’s eyes left Daryl’s and drifted across the street. Daryl could see the hunger there.

“It’s getting late, Daryl Dixon. I have to go.” He turned, the folds of his trench coat billowing out dramatically as he crossed the street and followed the loser of the fight down a back alley. 

Daryl backed up to his stoop, falling into a sitting position as he kept his eyes on Loki until the other man seemed to disappear into the darkness. 

***********************************************

When the sun finally dipped under the horizon and it was safe for Loki to move around under the cover of night, he knew where his feet would take him. The night before when he drank the life from the bar-fighter in the alley, all he could picture was Daryl’s head cocked to the side and the pulse that throbbed in his neck, the way his hair fell over his eyes, and the way his lips felt against Loki’s own.

Daryl knew now. He knew and he wasn’t repulsed or repelled. He was _intrigued_. _Attracted._ Eager.

Would Loki be able to take his body and not drain his blood? Could they be physical without the inevitable death that usually followed all of Loki’s love affairs? It was still a risk. Loki had never drank from anyone and stopped himself before his host was drained. By God though, he did want to taste Daryl’s blood, suck on the life of him, absorb all that he was. If he went too far, he could always nurse him back to life with his own blood, but that would turn him into a night walker and well, Loki wouldn’t wish that life on anyone. It was lonely, dark, and filled with death after death. Everyone but yourself. 

Once the sounds of nightlife wafted up to his second floor bedroom, Loki felt comfortable leaving the brownstone. Exiting the building, he headed in the direction of Daryl’s place, just one foot in front of the other like most nights. And it was after about only three steps that he quite literally ran into Daryl.

“Oh! I didn’t realize you knew where I lived,” Loki said.

Daryl was beautiful. Dark jeans, a tight dark long-sleeved shirt, and if Loki wasn’t mistaken, he might have actually brushed his hair.

“You got a problem with that?” Daryl asked, lifting his chin as if readying himself for a fight.

Loki couldn’t help but smile and wink. “It’s just a little creepy, I guess.”

“Creepy?” Daryl asked, exasperated. “You drained a wino of blood and left him for dead in a back alley last night and you think _I’m_ creepy!?

“I use the word creepy as a compliment,” Loki clarified as they fell into line and started walking down the street toward Daryl’s stoop.

After a few moments of silence Daryl finally asked. “Did you...do you fuck them first? Before you do that?”

Loki kept his eyes on the sidewalk in front of them. “Not always. Not last night.” He stopped and turned toward the shorter man. “Why? You jealous, love?”

“Fuck you,” Daryl snarled. 

Loki let his smile die and he looked honestly into Daryl’s eyes. “What you offered last night? That was...unexpected. And I’m...honored that you cherish what we have enough not to run off and disappear on me when I showed you my true self.”

“The offer is still good,” Daryl said and then he turned and started walking again. “How often do you have to feed?”

“Every few days,” Loki answered as if it were a conversation he had all the time and not the first time he’d EVER discussed such a thing with a mere mortal.

“So you’ve eaten,” Daryl said, then he stepped up onto his porch and opened the door. “So I’m inviting you in.”

“I’m afraid,” Loki admitted, his hands behind his back and his breath visible in the cold.

“I ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of,” Daryl smirked, pulling a laugh from Loki.

“I get attached easily,” Loki warned. 

“I want you to be attached,” Daryl said as he put a hand against Loki’s smooth, pale face. He backed into his house, Loki following him as if he couldn’t pull away from the touch. 

Inside, Daryl continued to back up toward his bedroom, his hand still resting on Loki’s cheek, pulling him along with just his sheer will. He pulled off his shirt as he backed up and tossed it on the floor, and Loki followed suit by shrugging off his long black coat, letting it fall unceremoniously on the floor.

Daryl backed up to his bed and fell onto it, Loki climbing over him and looking into his eyes like he could read his thoughts. Wordlessly, Loki leaned down and started pressing kisses down Daryl’s chest, pausing at each nipple to give it a tug with his teeth.

Moaning, Daryl reached down to unbuckle his pants and ungracefully tried to wiggle out of them, eliciting a soft chuckle from Loki who finally took pity on him and helped pull them off and toss them aside. 

Daryl felt so exposed, bare naked from head to toe underneath Loki who’d only shed his jacket and was still clothed in his black pants and black button up. 

“What are you going to do with me now, vampire?” Daryl asked, his voice registering lower than normal and his cock already hard.

“Most likely whatever I damn well please,” Loki said teasingly as he ran a finger from Daryl’s lips, down his chest, and over his length. “You got a problem with that, beautiful?”

“You gonna sweet-talk me, Loki, or are you gonna fuck me?” Daryl asked as he pulled his heels up on the bed and spread his legs in open invitation. 

Loki’s eyes flashed green and he took the time to unfasten two buttons on his shirt before he side-stepped civility and ripped the shirt the rest of the way off and tugged Daryl’s ass to the edge of the bed. 

“Lube?” Loki practically growled and Daryl smiled. 

“Already lubed and prepped. Was coming over to your place to convince you to have your way with me.”

Loki unbuttoned and unzipped his own pants as he kept his mysterious eyes on Daryl’s, blues and greens shifting every time the light from the streetlamp outside hit them differently. “You know now that I’ve wanted my way with you for months,” Loki said softly. “I can’t make any promises on my appetite after I’ve had you,” he said as his hands slid up Daryl’s thighs, giving him butterflies and goosebumps and a sense of anticipation he wasn't sure he’d ever felt.

“You can take what you want. I can stop you before you drain me completely.”

Loki laughed as he pushed Daryl’s thighs apart wider, leaving Daryl feeling even more vulnerable-- _owned_. “No, beautiful. You can’t. But I will try really hard not to devour you completely.”

His voice was so eloquent and sexy and it wasn’t the first time Daryl thought he’d be able to cum just at the mere sound of it rumbling low in his ear. 

“Ain’t scared. Fuck me,” Daryl growled and Loki wasted no time in obeying, lining himself up and pressing all the way into Daryl in one long, deep, excruciatingly slow motion, leaning the rest of the way down to capture Daryl’s lips in a kiss as he started pumping into him, first slowly and then faster and harder. 

Daryl took sheer pleasure in the slide and pull of Loki inside him, that mysterious Victorian scent of him, that predatory look in his eyes. 

“I want to own you,” Loki moaned as he fucked the other man with abandon. The words swirled into Daryl’s core as the other man shifted his position, starting to hit Daryl’s prostate. He groaned in sheer pleasure as he felt himself burst with an orgasm despite his cock being left untouched between them.

Spent, Daryl felt like he was at Loki’s mercy as the vampire panted and groaned and thrust into him, until he finally squeezed his eyes shut, an unexpectedly gentle cry escaping him as he slowed his thrusts and rode out his own orgasm. “Daryl,” he whispered softly, then his eyes opened again, dark pools of blue that sparkled with emerald green. Daryl heard the sound again, like a knife being unsheathed and the light of the streetlamp shimmered against Loki’s sharp, extended canines.

Unafraid, Daryl tilted his head to the side, offering his throat. 

“Daryl,” Loki whimpered again, clearly fighting against his inner demons, desperate to deny the animalistic predator side of him.

“S’okay,” Daryl said. “Take some. I want you to have it.”

The vampire instinct won out and he moved so fast Daryl didn't even see it happen before he felt the sharp stab of teeth tearing his neck open. He felt Loki’s mouth suckling against his throat as he drank from him, content as a breastfeeding child, eyes closed, eyelashes fanned out on his cheeks. 

Daryl could feel the blood draining from his body, feeling weaker and dizzier by the moment. He put a gentle hand against Loki’s face, rubbing his thumb against the vampire’s cheek. “Loki. You need to stop now. You can do it. Just stop and look at me. Look into my eyes. See me.”

Loki sucked a few more moments before he finally whimpered and unlatched his teeth, pulling back enough to obey Dary’s order, to meet the other man’s eyes. 

“Was I good?” Daryl asked innocently. Loki’s eyes faded into pale blue pools as he licked the remaining blood from his lips.

“Exquisite,” he said, his breath still coming hard and heavy as he pressed a kiss to Daryl’s forehead. He rolled over and nudged the other man so they could both center themselves in the bed, Daryl’s head coming to rest on Loki’s still heaving chest. “Jesus Christ,” Loki sighed as he absently ran a hand through Daryl’s hair. “That was heaven.”

“That was _sinful_ ,” Daryl countered, “And I want more of it.”

Loki chuckled and Daryl lifted his head to look down at the other man who looked more sated than any human ever had a right to be. But that was just it, wasn’t it? He wasn’t human. Daryl put his fingers over his own throat to feel the bite marks.

“The blood is clotting. You’ll be fine,” Loki said. 

“You stopped yourself. I knew you could.”

“I didn’t,” Loki said. “That was dangerous and incredibly stupid.”

“And you are already thinking about taking me all over again aren’t you?” Daryl asked with a lopsided grin.

“Yesss,” Loki admitted.

Daryl laid his head down on the pillow and they spent long, quiet minutes just looking at each other, Daryl tracing his finger along Loki’s jawline.

“Will I turn?” he asked innocently and Loki laughed.

“No. I would never do that to you, beautiful. You would have to drink from _me_ to turn.”

“I don’t remember that from the movies.”

“I’m not a movie, Darling. I’m the real thing.”

Daryl took Loki’s arm and pressed a kiss to the pulse point on his wrist, then dragged his teeth across it.

“Let me,” Daryl said, more of a demand than a request.

Loki moved his hand and sifted his fingers into Daryl’s hair instead. “You don’t want this life, beautiful. The boredom, the misery of watching mankind repeat the same mistakes over and over, watching everyone die around you time and again, having no control over your instincts to kill.”

“You won’t have to watch me die if you turn me.”

“Why would you want that?”

“So I could be yours...in every way.”

Loki stood and searched the floor for his pants. Dressing, he looked back at Daryl who was still sprawled on the bed. “Turning you would be more of a commitment, more permanent than marriage or tattoos. You would be mine for better and worse, not for the rest of your life, but for the rest of forever.”

Daryl reached out for Loki’s arm and kissed his pulse point again in a silent plea. 

“You sleep,” Loki ordered. “And we’ll talk about this when you aren’t still drunk on the feel of my cock inside you,” he said with that wide smile of his. And he slipped out of the room as Daryl felt himself drift into a deep, exhausted, sated, dreamless sleep.

\--------------------------------------------------

Daryl woke. The sun was streaming in through the undrawn windows and he could almost feel his pupils shrink to keep the brightness at bay. He shut his eyes again, rolled over, and quickly remembered the night before from the satisfying ache in his ass. 

He replayed it all through his head again. The flirting, the kiss, the shedding of clothes, and Loki powerful on top of him, splitting him open and taking everything he was offering. His body shivered at the memory; he could _feel_ his veins pumping blood through every inch of his body, his cock filling with it as he rutted against the mattress and moaned.

All he knew was that he needed Loki again and he’d already surmised the man wouldn’t be answering his door until the sun was tucked neatly away on the other side of the earth. He felt like the other man was still inside him, inside his head, inside his body. He felt owned. _Possessed_. Consumed.

He continued to rock his body into the mattress, panting and groaning, his mind a flash of images - Loki ripping off his own shirt, running his finger along Daryl’s throat, the look in his eyes when he pressed into Daryl, invading him, controlling him. With one final rut, he felt himself explode, the warmth of his release pooling around his softening cock.

He sat up and rubbed his hands over his face, glancing to his dresser mirror to see his hair sticking out in all directions. Ripping off his sheets, he flung them in the hamper and climbed into the shower, wondering how it was possible that he didn’t have Loki’s phone number. He knew he wouldn’t be able to see him again until night, but if he had a number he’d be able to hear the other man’s voice, take comfort in the sound of it. He’d long been interested in the other man and had even had a full-on crush for months, but what he felt as he washed the cum off his spent cock? It was uncontrollable desire and absolute surrender. 

Daryl worked his shift at the nearby liquor store and managed to get through the day without fucking anything up. His mind was on Loki nearly every minute. Afterwards he ordered dinner to go from the bar across the street and as he waited, he walked around to the back alley. The fading lines of a chalk outline were still visible behind the dumpster. Daryl had actually bought newspapers two days in a row and read them from front to back trying to find something about the murder, but there wasn’t a word anywhere. 

He tried to picture Loki in the shadows of the alley draining the barfighter from the other night. It wasn’t scary. It wasn’t disturbing. It actually filled him with desire and it brought a thousand questions to his mind. How did he keep feeding without getting caught? What did he do with so many bodies? How old was he? How was he turned in the first place? Daryl wanted to know everything.

Since the fall days were growing shorter, Daryl was waiting eagerly outside Loki’s brownstone as the sun just dipped below the horizon. He knew it would make him look desperate, but he hadn’t ever been good at playing it coy or trying to downplay his feelings. He _was_ his feelings and he wasn’t the kind of guy that had to hide them to feel more manly. He was perfectly comfortable with his level of manliness. That being said, though, he did quite literally squeak in excitement when he saw the door open and watched the tall, dark vampire walk out, his eyes locking onto Daryl’s immediately.

“Fancy seeing you here, my love. I was just on my way to find you,” Loki said as he walked down the stairs.

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Daryl asked flirtatiously. 

“I wanted to ask if you’d join me for a few drinks at the bar on the corner.”

“You asking me on a _date_ , Loki?” Daryl asked, his grin unhidable, uncontrollable. He was so damn happy to be looking at the other man. The sight of him was like quenching a thirst.

They fell into place walking beside one another back toward Daryl’s where the bar was on the corner. 

“I am. And I hope you know that I _do_ expect you to put out if I buy your drinks,” Loki said with a wink.

“Don’t worry. I’m easy,” Daryl teased back. “Kinda wouldn’t mind skipping the drinks and just going back to my place, though.”

“I want more than just your body, love. Let’s talk a bit before I ravage you senseless.”

“Speaking of, what was it that made you finally come to my bed after all these months?” Daryl asked.

“There’s always been something about you, Daryl. Special. You see me.”

“Well, you’re hard to miss. Tall, dark, and handsome.”

“But that’s just it. I’m a vampire. We’re not supposed to be seen. We travel in shadows and move like the night.”

Daryl nodded, trying to keep a straight face, and then burst out laughing. “You move like the night? The reason we first started talking to each other was because you slipped your shadowy ass on the icy sidewalk and cracked your skull on my porch step.”

Loki smiled at the memory and allowed the other man to have his laugh.

They crossed the street to the bar and Daryl literally had butterflies in his belly. He wanted more than just sex, too, but he wasn’t used to someone else wanting him that way. Most men just used him for sex and wanted little to do with him after. Loki held the door for him, looking the part of a perfect gentleman, even bowing a bit to allow Daryl to walk in ahead of him. 

After they sat down and ordered drinks, Daryl wasted no time in trying to learn more about the vampire that sat before him.

“How old are you, Loki?” he asked as a whiskey and a beer were put down at their table.

Loki looked around the room cautiously and stirred the ice in his drink with the tiny straw that sat inside it before he answered.

“Technically? 127.”

“So you were born in...” Daryl struggled to work out the math. Just having Loki close, having his complete attention, felt like a relief from the urges he’d been having all day.

“1893. There was a…”

“Depression. Panic of 1893,” Daryl finished, always confident in his knowledge of history. It was one of the many things they had in common.

“Yes,” Loki said with a smile. “My parents had lost everything and could not care for a newborn, so I was left at an orphanage.”

“That would have put you at twenty-one when the Great War started. Did you serve?”

“I did,” Loki answered with a nod as Daryl put down his beer, eyes wide.

“Holy shit. What was it like?”

“Loud and wet. And terrifying.”

“Jesus,” Daryl muttered. “Were you...were you what you _are_ by then?”

“A vampire?” Loki asked, just to clarify.

Daryl nodded, taking another long pull of his beer.

“No. I was still mortal then. It was a long, long time ago. But I haven’t forgotten how intense a mortal’s fear of death was. I didn’t...turn...until 1918. There was…”

“The pandemic. Spanish Flu,” Daryl finished for him.

“Right. And I remember being quite scared then, too.”

“But now? You don’t have a mortal’s fear anymore?”

Loki thought for a while then took a sip of his whiskey. “Not about death. But about loss. Because I will not die. But I will lose everything. I always do.”

“Who turned you?”

“My older brother.”

“I have an older brother, too. But mine don’t cure me of the flu and give me immortality. He just mostly gives me headaches and costs me money.”

“Another Dixon in the world, how delightful,” Loki smiled mischievously.

“Uhh, no. It’s not delightful. He’s like literally in jail.”

“Oh,” Loki said with one of his sexy brows raised in interest.

“It ain’t even a good story, man. He tried to rob that mini-mart over on West Third.”

“And how did that go?” Loki asked, without judgement.

“Well, he ain’t no mastermind. He literally slipped on a banana peel and the gun went off as he was falling down and he shot the cashier right through his earlobe. Attempted manslaughter. Ten years.”

Loki covered his mouth with a hand, trying desperately to hide his smile and still the shaking of his shoulders.

“A banana,” Loki repeated in that sexy accent of his.

“Yes,” Daryl answered, his face void of expression. “The newspapers called him the Banana Bandit.”

Loki finally burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, Daryl. I’m so sorry to laugh at your brother’s misfortune. But...I’ve been alive one hundred and twenty-seven years and I’ve never actually seen someone slip on a banana peel except in the funny pages.”

Daryl started laughing too as he signaled for the waitress to bring over another round. “Kinda hard not to laugh. He means well, he really does. He’s just a broke dumbass trying to find the easiest way to survive.”

“What about the rest of your family?” Loki asked as he got more comfortable, leaning back against his chair and gracefully crossing his legs.

“He was it. Folks been dead for ages. Merle pretty much raised me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, darlin,”

“Don’t be. Never really knew my mama and the old man was a right old asshole. No love lost there. Was your brother left at the orphanage, too?” Daryl asked.

“No. He was quite a bit older. Old enough to sell fruit on the street corners to help feed the family. I was just a mouth to feed. Thor never forgot about me though. He came and found me after my folks passed away and he’d finally saved himself up a bit of money. Feeling sentimental, I guess. Took custody of me. So yeah, he kinda raised me, too.”

“To brothers,” Daryl said as he raised his glass. 

“To brothers,” Loki responded, clicking his glass to Daryl’s nearly empty bottle of beer.

**********************************

**Three Months Later**

Loki was completely smitten. For weeks and weeks, he hung on Daryl’s every word, soaked in his every moan and sigh, worshipped every inch of his body. He had already felt the hole growing inside him, the emptiness he would feel when Daryl was eventually gone from the earth and Loki had to continue. Alone. 

“Do it,” Daryl whispered from across the table. 

“What?” Loki asked, snapping out of his trance.

“I know what you’re thinking about, Loki. I can read you like a book,” Daryl said. “Hell, you’re so easy for me to see it’s like a picture book that I don’t even have to actually read. I just see you. Feel you.”

“Then what am I thinking, Love?”

“Turning me,” Daryl said, his expression sober and his eyes dark and serious. “I want you to. What we have is not normal, Loki. You know it and I know it. What we have exceeds time and space and life and death.”

Loki kept his gaze on Daryl as the other man resituated himself and leaned back, cocking his head. “We’re soulmates.”

Loki looked away as if he was trying to close the pages of his open book.

Daryl leaned in again and took a sip of his beer. “Tell me you’ve felt like this before with another mortal and I’ll stop begging you to turn me,” he whispered.

“You know I can not deny what is between us. I very much like to have you by my side, Daryl. And I feel the love you have for me. But I cannot see a world in which I would want to change you into a murderer like I am.”

Daryl frowned. “You’re not a murderer.”

“I literally murdered someone last night. I drained his blood right in front of you and disposed of him in a lake.”

Daryl shook his head nonchalantly. “No. No, that’s like...you’re a carnivore. So what? I’m a carnivore. I eat steak and I like it rare, even.”

Loki laughed. “I see the look in your eyes the few times I’ve let you watch. You see the horror of it. You ache for the loss of humanity I cause.”

Daryl took a deep breath, another sip of beer, opened his mouth to explain, but paused again before taking another breath and another sip.

“A fox does not feel for a rabbit’s family,” Daryl finally said. “It doesn’t ache at the thought of filling it’s belly with another living being. It doesn’t see the death of a creature. It sees a meal. It’s the misfortune of your kind, Loki, that as a carnivore you have to be aware of what it takes to fill your belly. You are not a monster. In life there are predators and prey.”

“I don’t want you to be a predator, Daryl. I don’t want you to have to feel sadness every time you need to sate your hunger. See the loss of mankind and not be able to control yourself. It isn’t a craving or a habit or a desire that I have to drink the blood of man. It is an instinct, a need. A necessity. An absolute imperative.”

Daryl pouted. He always looked like a kicked puppy when they had this conversation, but it never stopped him from trying to have it every few weeks. “I got a grey hair, you know.” Daryl said as if it was Loki’s sole fault. 

He couldn’t help but allow his face to melt into a smile. Nothing was sweeter to see than Daryl’s lovely face pouting, trying to be serious while hiding a smile at the same time.

“Daryl, love. I think salt and pepper would quite become you.”

The conversation finally shifted back to normal topics--work, a documentary they’d watched the night before, jazz musicians that Loki had seen perform live. It was like any other night. They enjoyed a drink together, then walked the city, then headed back to one of their homes with an increasing appetite to devour one another, come together, share their heat and tangle their bodies and sate themselves of their sexual appetites. But as they crossed the back alley of the corner pub, a car appeared suddenly out of nowhere and slammed into Daryl, propelling his body into the dumpster so hard that the blue metal dented from the force. The gray Subaru stopped long enough to look and then sped off before Loki could even clearly comprehend what had happened. 

He rushed to his lover, cradling the other man’s bloodied head in his hands. Loki’s stomach sank, emptiness and the ache of loss so profound and deep he felt he might crumble to dust. 

“Daryl,” Loki croaked, tears already streaming. “It’s too soon. Don’t leave me yet, love. Please.”

He picked Daryl up like a bride and moved through the darkness, whisper-quiet, fast as the wind, and hidden in shadows. Once he was finally in his own home, Loki rested Daryl’s body on his bed, blood still leaking from a deep cut under his ear. The blood still flowed, which meant his heart was still beating and Loki made the decision without even having to think about it. He used a fingernail and made a deep cut into his own wrist and held it to Daryl’s lips. 

“Drink, my love. Become one with me so I can save you. Drink.”

When Loki held his arm against Daryl’s lips, the wounded man started to stir and he suckled onto Loki’s wrist, drinking meakly at first then opening his eyes, gaining strength back. He grabbed onto Loki’s arm with unexpected strength and held it still as he drank and drank, sucking the blood, the life, from Loki’s veins.

The cuts on Daryl’s forehead started to fade away and the deep neck wound sealed up like a disappearing mirage. 

“Drink your fill, my love,” Loki whispered as he met Daryl’s now focused eyes. I am yours and you are mine. Forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> I would LOVE to get feedback on this bizarre combination. Would you want to read any more of it? I had some additional ideas for this universe. Would any of these interest you?  
> 1\. A prequel about how Thor turned Loki into a vampire (Probably no smut here yet)  
> 2\. A sequel where Daryl (now as a vampire) meets Rick Grimes. (This would involve polyamory with Loki)  
> 3\. A next chapter where Loki and Daryl are Vampires together and Loki shows Daryl the ropes.
> 
> Or should I try writing a Loki slash with some avenger characters? Or should I go back to working on Rickyl? Would love to hear from you guys!


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